ed
with all the strength I had: "Aunt Elizabeth, I sha'n't go near the
hospital."

"Don't you think it's decent for you to call on Mrs. Goward?" she asked.

She gave me a little shake. It made me angry. "It may be decent," I
said, "but I sha'n't do it."

"Very well," said Aunt Elizabeth. Her voice was sweet again. "Then I
must do it for you. Nobody asks you to see Harry himself. I'll run in
and have a word with him--but, Peggy, you simply must pay your respects
to Mrs. Goward."

"No! no! no!" I heard myself answering, as if I were in some strange
dream. Then I said: "Why, it would be dreadful! Mother wouldn't let me!"

Aunt Elizabeth came closer and put her hands on my shoulders. She has
a little fragrance about her, not like flowers, but old laces, perhaps,
that have been a long time in a drawer with orris and face-powder and
things. "Peggy," said she, "never tell your mother I asked you."

I felt myself stiffen. She was whispering, and I saw she meant it.

"Oh, Peggy! don't tell your mother. She is not--not simpatica. I might
lose my home here, my only home. Peggy, promise me."

"Daughter!" mother was calling from the dining-room.

I slipped away from Aunt Elizabeth's hands. "I promise," said I. "You
sha'n't lose your home."

"Daughter!" mother called again, and I went in.

That night at supper nobody talked except father and mother, and they
did every minute, as if they wanted to keep the rest of us from speaking
a word. It was all about the Works. Father was describing some new
designs he had accepted, and telling how Charles Edward said they would
do very well for the trimmings of a hearse, and mother coughed and said
Charles Edward's ideas were always good, and father said not where the
market was concerned. Aunt Elizabeth had put on a white dress, and I
thought she looked sweet, because she was sad and had made her face
quite pale; but I was chiefly busy in thinking how to escape before
anybody could talk to me. It doesn't seem safe nowadays to speak a word,
because we don't know where it will lead us. Alice, too, looked pale,
poor child! and kept glancing at me in a way that made me so sorry. I
wanted to tell her I didn't care about her pranks and Billy's, whatever
they were. And whatever she had written, it was sure to be clever. The
teacher says Alice has a positive genius for writing, and before
many years she'll be in all the magazines. When supper was over I ran
up-stairs to my room. I sat down